Feeling Naked

Please, no it’s not what you think. I try to keep this blog at least PG rated. The battery on my wristwatch died this evening so I had to take it off and now I feel as if I’m not fully dressed. Being a very time conscious person, not wearing a watch makes me feel somewhat naked. Since it’s getting late in the evening I couldn’t possibly find a watch repair shop that is still open. I’ve tried replacing the battery on one of these watches before but the electronic parts on them are so sensitive that it is very easy to mess it up, which I unfortunately did. Even if a watch repairman did it, there is no guarantee that the watch will perform exactly the way it used to, but at least the odds are greater that it might still work. In the meantime until I find an open repair shop tomorrow morning on the Fourth of July, I’m feeling a little underdressed. Perhaps I can find a strap to attach my cell phone to my wrist and use that as a watch instead. I wonder if there is a sports chronograph out there that doesn’t require a battery but just needs to be winded like the old watches? I feel that I always need to wear a watch because it is one of my bare necessities.

Romantic Filipino Movies

Romantic Filipino movies are usually corny, sappy, with some slapstick added to it. It usually involves some kind of breakup, parental disapproval, societal status differences, or separation due to moving abroad for work or immigration (the last part I know I cannot identify with because I’m sure I didn’t leave anyone behind). Heavy drama interspersed with humor now adapted to modern life is a common formula for the script. Parts of it may be so syrupy sweet that you can pour it on your pancakes. Of course it would be incomplete without an equally sappy soundtrack of Filipino and English songs. I don’t watch it often and I could probably count within the ten fingers of my two hands how many I’ve watched since I moved here in the U.S. That’s because I don’t have cable TV so I don’t get TFC (The Filipino Channel). So it was a surprise that while watching a Filipino movie today, it elicited the same emotional responses that it did when I was growing up in the Philippines. I won’t get into details on what those emotional responses were, damn it! Hahaha! It took me on a sentimental journey where you tend to empathize/sympathize with the characters like only a Filipino could probably feel. If you didn’t grow up watching movies like these, you would probably feel that the characters, script, music, and the movie as a whole is laughable. Most movies made in the Philippines are still rough around the edges in terms of cinematography and transitions from one scene to the next. But I can understand that it’s built for a specialized audience. It has been almost 30 years since I left that country but while watching this movie, I’m finding out that a piece of my heart still remains a Flip.

Being Chased

About 10 minutes into my run today I could feel somebody running fast coming up behind me, so I moved aside to let him pass. I couldn’t hear him until he got close because I had my MP3 player on (mostly I listen to the radio because I like the talking part in addition to the music, a carryover from the Sony Walkman radio days). So it was only when he was almost on top of me when I heard him call out “Sir, sir, excuse me please”. So I stopped to find out what he wanted. He said he had to run really hard to catch up with me so he could give me a flyer. It had information about the Viking Challenge Series runs in Long Beach City College. I told the kid I already had that information because somebody from the AREC running club had emailed it to us a few days ago. So I declined the flyer because I didn’t want to carry it while running, then merrily continued on my run. It’s not often that someone tries to chase me down during my mid-week runs so that surprised me. One of the perils of using an MP3 player while running.

After several months of not doing any road intervals, I was finally able to do one today. Four sets of the 3/2/1 minute pickups. I don’t know how that is going to affect my joints for Saturday’s run. My right ankle is pretty achy right now so I’ll have to baby it for the next couple of days.

My Alley Cat

My cat got out the door a couple of weeks ago while chasing another cat who had been urinating at my doorstep. She used to be an alley cat whom I rescued about 3 years ago from work where she was hanging around the parking lot and was being fed by my co-workers. What enamored me to this cat was that she would approach just about anybody to be fed and allow them to pet her. During one of my off days, I just went back to my jobsite with a pet carrier and essentially kidnapped this cat from the parking lot. My co-workers didn’t mind because they knew I had been taking care of one or two cats at home for years. When I had her spayed, the vet informed me that she was pregnant so they had to “take care” of the underdeveloped babies. I didn’t want to know what they had to do but at least my new cat had been “fixed” and would not have unwanted kittens again.

I planned on keeping Boo as an indoor cat and that transition was probably difficult for her. She would spend a lot of time staring out the window at the birds outside or hiss at some cat that would come to my door usually to mark the spot. It must be a territorial competition thing with them. Last year Boo even managed to get out the door to chase another cat, then spent the day sunning herself on my neighbor’s patio before I finally managed to catch her and get her back indoors. Her coat was full of dirt and leaves by then.

So it didn’t surprise be very much when she got out the door and chased another cat a couple of weeks ago. The difference this time is that she disappeared for a few days. Then as mysteriously as she disappeared, she reappeared a few days ago peering into my screen door. But when I try to go out and get her, she would run away. I’m not up to doing wind sprints anymore because of my running injuries so I am not able to catch up with her. Anyway, it doesn’t look like she has had any ill-effects of being outdoors. I didn’t see any visible injuries from afar and she hasn’t lost weight, so apparently she has found another food source (the birds?!). So although I miss Boo being close to me, I’m glad that she is surviving in the environment that she is more comfortable in. I hope she comes and visits once in awhile so I can see that she is doing okay. The good thing is that she has been spayed and would not be contributing to cat overpopulation. In short, you can take a cat out of the alley, but you can’t take the alley out of the cat.

Postscript: There is an upside of not having a cat after all these years. The smell of litter is (almost) gone, and after using the carpet sweeper and vacuum, there are no more visible granules of tracked litter and cat hair all over the place (although the deeply imbedded ones still come up to the surface once in a while).